Historical Highlights 1880's

1880

The Fish Commission's summer station is at Newport, R.I., where the Fish Hawk operates for the season. Over 50 Commission investigators are
in the field.

Spencer Baird receives the first-honor prize at the Berlin Exposition
from the Emperor of Germany, not only for the excellence of the
Commission's fisheries display, but also owing to the international
regard of Baird who was widely seen as the preeminent fish culturist
for his successful promotion of fish culture and fish
acclimatization--exchanging fish and fish ova throughout the world.

Prof. Addison E. Verrill estimates that in just 10 years, research,
mainly by the Commission, has added 1,000 new species to the list of
known marine creatures in New England waters--not including finfishes.
About 100 newly discovered finfishes were added during the same period
on the Atlantic coast.

Despite having a very stylish Washington address (1445 Massachusetts
Ave.) Baird is characterized in an article "Celebrities at Home", as
dressing in the plain and slightly old-fashioned style of a well-to-do
country English farmer.

"This is ... a most wonderful fauna, vastly exceeding in richness and
extent on anything known to science."--S. F Baird, on results of
explorations of the Gulfstream slope 80 miles south of Martha's
Vineyard, Mass.

More than 260,000 fertilized rainbow trout ova are shipped east from
California for distribution to state fish commissions.

1882

The lab receives its first presidential visit, from Chester A. Arthur.
Arthur is taken for a collecting cruise off Woods Hole in the
Commission steamer Despatch.

In April vessels report countless dead tilefish floating in an area
from Georges Banks to Cape May. A conservative estimate made by Capt.
J.W.Collins of the RV Grampus placed the number of dead fish at upwards
of 1,438,720,000 (That's 1.43 billion fish!). Allowing 10 pounds for
each fish he estimated this amounted to 288 pounds for every man, woman
and child in the U.S. at the time. The mystery was never explained, but
a plausable explanation for the deaths seemed to be a sudden chilling
of the deeper waters along this stretch of ocean. No catch of tilefish
was reported again for 15 years.

Albatross I

In March, the 234-foot U.S.S. Albatross, the first U.S. research
vessel built exclusively for fisheries and oceanographic research, is
launched. The ironhull, twin-screw vessel was designed to conduct its
marine investigations in any part of the world's seas

Volume 1, for 1881, of the Bulletin of the United States Fish
Commission is published "... for the purpose of utilizing and of
promptly publishing the large amount of interesting correspondence of
the Fish Commission in reference to matters pertaining to fish
culture and to the apparatus, methods, and results of the fisheries....
Parts of the text were distributed signature by signature, the
remainder in bound annual volumes." Now the quarterly, peer-reviewed
journal Fishery Bulletin, this series has been in continuous
publication for 115 years.

1883

Woods Hole, Mass., property is deeded to the U.S. Government for the
construction of the Commission's first full-time research laboratory.

Baird suggests that purer forms of salt be used to solve the problem of
red cod a discoloration found in cured cod.

1884

Construction of the laboratory building at Woods Hole begins.

1885

The first permanent lab is completed, built on land given for
the purpose by a local resident (Joseph Story Fay) with a combination of
federal and private funds. The building remains useful until 1958.
Because of the permanent facility, the Commission's research vessels
Fish Hawk and the world-renowned Albatross begin to use Woods Hole as a
base.

In summer, Atlantic shad are transported in a railroad car to the
Pacific coast and planted in Washington Territory and Oregon waters. On
return, clams, Tapes staminea, are collected and brought back to Woods
Hole

Baird writes excitedly about acquisition of female and male pygmy sperm
whales taken from Atlantic waters. These whales had been known to exist
only in the Pacific Ocean,

1886

RV Grampus

The Grampus, another Commission research ship, is completed,
providing a revolutionary new fishing vessel design.

1887

On August 19th, Spencer F. Baird, first Commissioner of Fisheries, dies
at Wood Hole, Mass. Confined to a wheelchair in his latter days, he
reportedly requested that he be wheeled around the station for final
contact with his handiwork. He is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery,
Washington,

"... There rises again the thought that kept recurring then, that the
sea is very ancient, that it ebbed and flowed before man appeared on
the planet, and will ebb and flow after he and his words have dis-
ppeared; and a singular, indefinite impression, as if something had
passed that was, in some fashion, great and mysterious, and ancient
like the sea itself."-- Edwin Linton, speaking of the day of Baird's
death

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), private research facility, is
established at Woods Hole, and staff are given free access to Commission
Facilities

Rainbow trout, a western species, is doing so well in eastern U.S. fish
culture stations that shipments of them from the west are
discontinued.

G.B. Goode

In September, George Brown Goode temporarily succeeds Baird, but he
resigns atter 6 months to devote full time to his duties as Director of
the U.S. National Museum.

The huge and extensive five-section, seven-volume review of the history
and conditions of U.S. fisheries is published by the Commission. Edited
by George Brown Goode, it is titled "The Fisheries and Fishery of the
United States".

1888

On January 20th, Congress establishes the U.S. Fish Commission as an
independent agency of the Federal government and terminates its
administrative relationship with the Smithsonian Institution.
Marshall McDonald is appointed Commissioner at a salary of $5,000 per
year

The Albatross sails to the Pacific Ocean where it is used for fisheries
and oceanographic research and for marine mammal (fur seal) law
enforcement patrols until 1914

On July 4th the first Federal efforts in fishery studies along the
North Pacific coast begin as the Albatross leaves San Francisco to
collect marine samples and observe fish and other aquatic life. It con-
ducts fisheries investigations off the coasts of California, Oregon,
Washington and Alaska

W. O. Atwater publishes the 200-page report on the nutritive values of
various fishes in the Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries for
1888-1889.- It provides a basic reference on proximate composition of
fish and shellfish and remains valuable today for comparison of
composition ranges in relation to species size and distribution

The Pacific halibut fishery is inaugurated as a sailing schooner
returns to Seattle with its catch.

1889

H.V.P. Wilson publishes his classic fish embryology paper on sea bass,
based on his work at the Fish Commission lab.

Pacific halibut is shipped to the east coast by rail, and as the market
develops and demand grows, the fishery gradually extends farther
offshore.

The Albatross is ordered to escort the Dawes Commission along the
Pacific coast.

Livingston Stone likens the Pacific salmon of Alaska to the buffalo and
calls for the formation of a National Salmon Park.